By Alizeh Haider
Scotland Yard’s probe into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has failed to address the more important questions surrounding the event. Pakistani Senator Farhatullah Babar of the PPP, Bhutto’s party, said as much recently: “It is really immaterial,” he said. “In what way does it negate the PPP’s position that there are hidden hands behind Bhutto’s murder?”
Not only has the report been largely rejected for being self-contradictory and overly presumptuous, but it also calls into question the government’s real objective for commissioning this investigation. It now seems Scotland Yard was inducted as proof of the government’s genuine and earnest efforts to investigate Ms. Bhutto’s murder. However, far from vindicating itself, the government has only succeeded at drawing further criticism.
Perhaps most incriminating to the government is that Scotland Yard was only mandated to ‘assist’ the government in its finding of ‘how’ Ms. Bhutto was assassinated. That mandate fails to address the more important questions of who the forces behind the killing were, and why it happened.
Who was the government officer responsible for providing Ms. Bhutto with faulty jammers? Who was responsible for dimming the street lights on Karsaz as Ms. Bhutto’s motorcade passed under them? Which government department was responsible for hosing down the crime site, and on whose orders were they acting? Reportedly, 1300 policemen were deployed in and around Liaquat Bagh, but only seven were at the attack site and just one was close enough to lose his life in the attack. Who from within the police department was responsible for such sloppy security measures?
But let’s suppose for a minute that the government is right, and that Baitullah Mehsud did really sponsor Ms. Bhutto’s murder. Two questions then arise: Who are the people within the establishment and the government who are acting as Mehsud’s agents and support network? Why is the government not exposing them?
Ms. Bhutto had written an email to Foreign Secretary Milliband in September, naming three individuals who were determined to assassinate her. According to a report by Simon Walters in The Daily Mail, Bhutto wrote: “The following persons are planning to murder me and if any harm comes to me they should be held responsible.” The report then goes on to say that one is a senior intelligence officer and a retired army officer who has been allegedly involved in drug smuggling and political assassinations. He allegedly directed two Islamic groups and reportedly once boasted that he could hire killers to assassinate anyone who posed a threat to Musharraf’s regime. The second individual Ms. Bhutto named is well-known in Pakistani political circles and has been involved in a vicious family feud with her for decades. The third is a well-known ex-chief minister in Pakistan who is a long-standing opponent of Ms. Bhutto.
These individuals ought to be treated as prime suspects. Instead of ordering an investigation, Musharraf has gone on record saying that the Scotland Yard team will not be allowed to ‘goose chase’ members in the government on the basis of ‘suspicions.’
An outraged Senator Babar asked: “Why are these elements being protected? If they are innocent, then why not let them clear their names?”
To quote M. Shahid Alam, a professor of economics at Northeastern University: “That is what makes Benazir Bhutto's murder a Pakistani tragedy. In a single tragic event, it crystallizes the malfeasance of Pakistan's political classes and the failure of Pakistanis to bring them to account for their treasonous crimes.”
It is the government’s undeniable duty to ensure that a credible probe is conducted into the assassination of the ex-prime minister of the country. But the government must also be wary of patronizing those sinister elements within its machinery who only thrive by destabilizing the country.
Alizeh Haider is a Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist currently based in the United Arab Emirates.
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